


Call of Cthulhu: Character Poems

by Sunevial



Category: Internet Remix, Rolling with Remix: Masks of Nyarlathotep (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:33:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27474316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunevial/pseuds/Sunevial
Summary: Poems written for the five investigators
Comments: 17
Kudos: 15





	1. Kit Sullivan

The dirt and mud

Swallowed men whole

Drowned them in pauper’s graves

Decorated with bullet shells and shrapnel

And sent them on their way

Choking on toxic smoke

So that I might be the one

To crawl from that place

Aged twenty years

To head to a house that I

Outgrew

To take to the winds

Because the earth still

Wants to claim its due

And to find a home

In those who understand

I cannot stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Each of my poems will have some author's commentary about my thoughts and inspirations behind each investigator. Take these all with a grain of salt though! Death of the author is incredibly valid when dealing with poetry, so don't let me dictate how you interpret my work.
> 
> Kit's was the first poem I wrote, and that was very intentional. I wanted his to set the stage for the ones to come, and I wanted that really old, heavy, post-war feel that the on stream poems had. I incorporated his fear of being buried alive with the notoriously muddy and rain-soaked trenches (which sometimes could swallow people up), and I knew I wanted to work in that feeling of going off to war too young and coming back too old (ie, that sort of Narnia feel at the end of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe). I also wanted to end on the note of him not really knowing his place in life, but knowing he can't stay. And why it's so important for the people he chooses to make his family know that he can't stay.


	2. Sunil Pandey

This place is not a place of honour

He says, arms deep in blood

Surrounded by the wounded

The dying, dead

Stench of so many men crawling

Coiling up his body

Suffocating in knowing he can’t save

Them all

No highly esteemed deed was commemorated

Here

Too familiar even years later

The poison in his father’s eyes

Can’t save the one

He wanted

As he wonders what wrong his soul

Must have committed

To have karma decide him such a fate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Each of my poems will have some author's commentary about my thoughts and inspirations behind each investigator. Take these all with a grain of salt though! Death of the author is incredibly valid when dealing with poetry, so don't let me dictate how you interpret my work.
> 
> Sunil had a very, very specific inspiration. I don't know how many people are familiar with the proposed nuclear waste burial site 'future warning' signs, but essentially, there's been a lot of work trying to prepare for what happens if people in the future don't know what nuclear radiation is, and how to protect people from being exposed to it. The lines "this place is not a place of honor" and "no highly esteemed dead were commemorated here" were directly lifted from that proposal. I wanted to weave in his study of radiation with imagery of snakes and death, given how both of them are so central to his characterization in PoP. Along with that, I wanted to weave in his feelings of failure and never being enough into this narrative, and to top it all off, I thought to add in a bit of reference to karma, this idea that he did something wrong in a previous life to have this be where he is now. My thought process there was "even if he's not Hindu, he would've been influenced by it growing up", so I threw that in as well.


	3. Sybil Cordova

There is music in the halls

Dancing between the shadows of flickering

Lights and candles

A swirl of bodies and ecstasy because this place

Cannot be silent once more

Refuses to be silent once more

Will not be silent once more

Because the morbid and macabre 

Cannot make bones speak

Cannot make the bones she

Wants to

Speak

So she surrounds herself with

The fire of passion and

The neverending song

And hopes they never leave

For the halls always again

Fall silent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Each of my poems will have some author's commentary about my thoughts and inspirations behind each investigator. Take these all with a grain of salt though! Death of the author is incredibly valid when dealing with poetry, so don't let me dictate how you interpret my work.
> 
> Sybil's was an exploration in her trying endlessly to fill this hole she's had for so long in her life. The fact she hates empty spaces, hates being alone, hates that she's been alone for so long, so she surrounds herself with people and passion because it's so much better than being stuck in the same place. Fire and light were used primarily as a 'neutral to negative' modifier in a nod to how much that has taken from her. Bones are a nod to her love of the macabre and the occult, but also a nod to the fact that no matter how many answers she finds, she can't truly speak to the two people she probably wants to speak to most in the world. I used a lot of repetition for Sybil because she seems like the person who needs to convince herself of the truth over and over again, and at the end, it's not just quite enough.


	4. Mason Allen

Lights illuminate the world, for it

Has always been his stage

Casting away the chance that

There might be something

Lurking

Behind, why he likes

Cameras pointed to his all

Because when the film is

Rolling there are

No secrets

Only himself and the lines

And the people he has chosen

To touch and hold, to

Caress and kiss

Because he is a man of

Action and a man who

Stands in the spotlight

Because it’s better

To be the star that burns bright

Before it bursts

Than being swallowed

By the shadows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Each of my poems will have some author's commentary about my thoughts and inspirations behind each investigator. Take these all with a grain of salt though! Death of the author is incredibly valid when dealing with poetry, so don't let me dictate how you interpret my work.
> 
> Mason's was equally about his personal character growth over PoP and about his paranoia, funnily enough. Yes, he's a person who's grown a lot and has pushed past a lot of really hard stuff, but he's a person with a lot of scars. The lights and cameras and stage of the Hollywood screen are meant to be where he's comfortable, because when there's lights that bright, the shadows are so much harder to see. Shadows represent more of his fear of what is lurking where he can't see or understand. Overall, I wanted to portray that he's someone who loves and cares so deeply about all the people around him, how he wields intimacy not as a weapon but a gentle touch, and about how he's much more willing to go out with a bang than hide away...but also how scared he is of letting himself be consumed by his fears.


	5. James O’Connel

All men carry ghosts, but

Most do not carry as much

As one outrunning

Death

As one might a jilted lover by

Sending gifts wrapped in shrouds

And soaked crimson red

To placate someone

He cheated and continues

Wondering how long

His soul

Wishes to keep taking

How long before it

Is all he knows

To give, to see, to watch

As his humanity falls into

The abyss he gazed and saw

That war is war

Hell is hell

And there is something

Far worse than both

Beyond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Each of my poems will have some author's commentary about my thoughts and inspirations behind each investigator. Take these all with a grain of salt though! Death of the author is incredibly valid when dealing with poetry, so don't let me dictate how you interpret my work.
> 
> James's poem started with one line in my head: "war is war, hell is hell, and I've seen something worse than both". Obviously, I changed this line for the finished poem, but I really wanted to play with the idea of a man outrunning death and much luckier than he should be. Given how tied he is to Sybil now in MoN, I liked the idea of James's only true relationship before that being his one with Death, the one he cheated and still continues to cheat by staying alive. He's a man who learned to kill, who realized that doing that was something he had no right being so good at, and someone who is scared of that being the only thing he can be known for. Which is why it ended on the note it did, the idea he's terrified of losing his humanity and that which is beyond the mortal and the mundane.


End file.
